The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson

Name: The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson
Author: Alfred Tennyson

by Alfred Tennyson

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Arthurian Legends Poetry British Literature English poetry, 19th century

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The volume gathers Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s early verse, presenting the poems that first appeared in his 1830 and 1832 collections and the selections added for the 1842 edition. It opens with a long inventory of titles, “Claribel,” “Mariana,” “The Merman,” “The Lady of Shalott,” “The Lotos‑Eaters,” and many others, followed by a scholarly preface that explains how the poems were assembled, traced through successive editions, and annotated with variants. The introductory material details the chronology of Tennyson’s youthful output, the revisions he made over the years, and the painstaking bibliographic work that underlies this edition, giving readers a clear sense of the book’s scope and its place in the poet’s development.

The poems reflect the lyrical, often mythic voice of a poet who was still shaping his style in his twenties and early thirties. Written in the early‑Victorian period, the language combines classical allusion, Romantic imagination, and a nascent formal precision that would later define his mature work. Readers who enjoy close‑reading of early Romantic poetry, scholars interested in textual history, or anyone fascinated by the evolution of a major 19th‑century English poet will find this collection rewarding.

Characters in The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson

ClaribelYoung classical beauty, long golden hair, white flowing gown, delicate features, soft expression
MarianaPale, melancholy woman, dark hair loosely bound, simple grey dress, wistful eyes, modest veil
Lady of ShalottMedieval noblewoman in a tower, ivory silk gown, silver veil, crown of lilies, solemn gaze

The opening · free to read

A Critical edition of Tennyson’s poems has long been an acknowledged want. He has taken his place among the English Classics, and as a Classic he is, and will be, studied, seriously and minutely, by many thousands of his countrymen, both in the present generation as well as in future ages. As in the works of his more illustrious brethren, so in his trifles will become subjects of curious interest, and assume an importance of which we have no conception now. Here he will engage the attention of the antiquary, there of the social historian. Long after his politics, his ethics, his theology have ceased to be immediately influential, they will be of immense historical significance. A consummate artist and a consummate master of our language, the process by which he achieved results so memorable can never fail to be of interest, and of absorbing interest, to critical students.

I must, I fear, claim the indulgence due to one who attempts, for the first time, a critical edition of a text so perplexingly voluminous in variants as Tennyson’s. I can only say that I have spared neither time nor labour to be accurate and exhaustive. I have myself collated, or have had collated for me, every edition recorded in the British Museum Catalogue, and where that has been deficient I have had recourse to other public libraries, and to the libraries of private friends. I am not conscious that I have left any variant unrecorded, but I should not like to assert that this is the case. Tennyson was so restlessly indefatigable in his corrections that there may lurk, in editions of the poems which I have not seen, other variants; and it is also possible that, in spite of my vigilance, some may have escaped me even in the editions which have been collated, and some may have been made at a date earlier than the date recorded. But I trust this has not been the case.

Of the Bibliography I can say no more than that I have done my utmost to make it complete, and that it is very much fuller than any which has hitherto appeared. That it is exhaustive I dare not promise.

With regard to the Notes and Commentaries, I have spared no pains to explain everything which seemed to need explanation. There are, I think, only two points which I have not been able to clear up, namely, the name of the friend to whom the The Palace of Art was addressed, and the name of the friend to whom the Verses after reading a Life and Letters were addressed. I have consulted every one who would be likely to throw light on the subject, including the poet’s surviving sister, many of his friends, and the present Lord Tennyson, but without success; so the names, if they were not those of some imaginary person, appear to be irrecoverable. The Prize Poem, Timbuctoo, as well as the poems which were temporarily or finally suppressed in the volumes published in 1830 and 1832 have been printed in the Appendix: those which were subsequently incorporated in his Works, in large type; those which he never reprinted, in small.

The text here adopted is that of 1857, but Messrs. Macmillan, to whom I beg to express my hearty thanks, have most generously allowed me to record all the variants which are still protected by copyright. I have to thank them, too, for assistance in the Bibliography. I have also to thank Mr. J. T. Wise for his kindness in lending me the privately printed volume containing the Morte d’Arthur, Dora, etc.

The development of Tennyson’s genius, methods, aims and capacity of achievement in poetry can be studied with singular precision and fulness in the history of the poems included in the present volume. In 1842 he published the two volumes which gave him, by almost general consent, the first place among the poets of his time, for, though Wordsworth was alive, Wordsworth’s best work had long been done. These two volumes contained poems which had appeared before, some in 1830 and some in 1832, and some which were then given to the world for the first time, so that they represent work belonging to three eras in the poet’s life, poems written before he had completed his twenty-second year and belonging for the most part to his boyhood, poems written in his early manhood, and poems written between his thirty-first and thirty-fourth year.

The poems published in 1830 had the following title-page: “_Poems, Chiefly Lyrical, by Alfred Tennyson._ London: Effingham Wilson, Royal Exchange, 1830”. They are fifty-six in number and the titles are:—

Claribel. Lilian. Isabel. Elegiacs.* The “How” and the “Why”. Mariana. To —— . Madeline. The Merman. The Mermaid. Supposed Confessions of a second-rate sensitive mind not in unity with itself.* The Burial of Love. To — (Sainted Juliet dearest name.) Song. The Owl. Second Song. To the same. Recollections of the Arabian Nights. Ode to Memory. Song. (I’ the glooming light.) Song. (A spirit haunts.) Adeline. A Character. Song. (The lint-white and the throstle cock.) Song. (Every day hath its night.) The Poet. The Poet’s Mind. Nothing will die.* All things will die.* Hero to Leander. The Mystic. The Dying Swan. A Dirge. The Grasshopper. Love, Pride and Forgetfulness. Chorus (in an unpublished drama written very early). Lost Hope. The Deserted House.*† The Tears of Heaven. Love and Sorrow. To a Lady Sleeping. Sonnet. (Could I outwear my present state of woe.) Sonnet. (Though Night hath climbed her peak of highest noon.) Sonnet. (Shall the hag Evil die with child of Good.) Sonnet. (The pallid thunderstricken sigh for gain.) Love. Love and Death. The Kraken.* The Ballad of Oriana. Circumstance. English War Song. National Song. The Sleeping Beauty. Dualisms. We are Free. The Sea-Fairies.*† Sonnet to J.M.K. οἱ ῥέοντες

Of these the poems in italics appeared in the edition of 1842, and were not much altered. Those with an asterisk were, in addition to the italicised poems, afterwards included among the Juvenilia in the collected works (1871-1872), though excluded from all preceding editions of the poems. Those with both a dagger and an asterisk were restored in editions previous to the first collected editions of the works.

In December, 1832, appeared a second volume (it is dated on the title-page, 1833): “Poems by Alfred Tennyson. London: Moxon, MDCCCXXXIII.” This contains thirty poems:—

Sonnet.†† (Mine be the strength of spirit fierce and free.) To— .†† (All good things have not kept aloof.) Buonaparte.†† Sonnet I. (O Beauty passing beauty, sweetest Sweet.) Sonnet II.†† (But were I loved, as I desire to be.) The Lady of Shalott.* _Mariana in the South._* Eleanore. _The Miller’s Daughter._* φαίνεταί μοι κῆνος ἴσος θεοῖσιν Ἔμμεν ἀνήρ. Œnone. The Sisters. To— . (With the Palace of Art.)* _The Palace of Art_* The May Queen. New Year’s Eve. The Hesperides. The Lotos Eaters. Rosalind.†† _A Dream of Fair Women_* Song. (Who can say.) Margaret. Kate. Sonnet. Written on hearing of the outbreak of the Polish Insurrection. Sonnet.†† On the result of the late Russian invasion of Poland. Sonnet.†† (As when with downcast eyes we muse and brood.) O Darling Room. To Christopher North. The Death of the Old Year. To J. S.

Of these the poems italicised were included in the edition of 1842; those marked with an asterisk being greatly altered and in some cases almost rewritten, those marked with a dagger being practically unaltered. To those reprinted in the collected works a double dagger is prefixed.

In 1842 appeared the two volumes which contained, in addition to the selections made from the two former volumes, several new poems:—

“Poems by Alfred Tennyson. In two volumes. London: Edward Moxon, MDCCCXLII.”

The first volume is divided into two parts: Selections from the poems published in 1830, Claribel to the Sonnet to J. M. K. inclusive. Selections from the poems of 1832, The Lady of Shalott to The Goose inclusive. The second volume contains poems then, with two exceptions, first published.

The Epic. Morte d’Arthur. The Gardener’s Daughter. Dora. Audley Court. Walking to the Mail. St. Simeon Stylites. Conclusion to the May Queen. The Talking Oak. Lady Clara Vere de Vere. Love and Duty. Ulysses. Locksley Hall. Godiva. The Two Voices. The Day Dream. Prologue. The Sleeping Palace. The Sleeping Beauty. The Arrival. The Revival. The Departure. Moral. L’Envoi. Epilogue. Amphion. St. Agnes. Sir Galahad. Edward Gray. Will Waterproofs Lyrical Monologue, made at the Cock. Lady Clare. The Lord of Burleigh. Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere. A Farewell. The Beggar Maid. The Vision of Sin. The Skipping Rope. “Move Eastward, happy Earth.” “Break, break, break.” The Poet’s Song.

Only two of these poems had been published before, namely, St. Agnes, which was printed in The Keepsake for 1837, and The Sleeping Beauty in The Day Dream, which was adopted with some alterations from the 1830 poem, and only one of these poems was afterwards suppressed, The Skipping Rope, which was, however, allowed to stand till 1851. In 1843 appeared the second edition of these poems, which is merely a reprint with a few unimportant alterations, and which was followed in 1845 and in 1846 by a third and fourth edition equally unimportant in their variants, but in the fourth The Golden Year was added. In the next edition, the fifth, 1848, The Deserted House was included from the poems of 1830. In the sixth edition, 1850, was included another poem, To— , after reading a Life and Letters, reprinted, with some alterations, from the Examiner of 24th March, 1849.

The seventh edition, 1851, contained important additions. First the Dedication to the Queen, then Edwin Morris, the fragment of The Eagle, and the stanzas, “Come not when I am dead,” first printed in The Keepsake for 1851, under the title of Stanzas. In this edition the absurd trifle The Skipping Rope was excised and finally cancelled. In the eighth edition, 1853, The Sea-Fairies, though greatly altered, was included from the poems of 1830, and the poem To E. L. on his Travels in Greece was added. This edition, the eighth, may be regarded as the final one. Nothing afterwards of much importance was added or subtracted, and comparatively few alterations were made in the text from that date to the last collected edition in 1898.

All the editions up to, and including, that of 1898 have been carefully collated, so that the student of Tennyson can follow step by step the process by which he arrived at that perfection of expression which is perhaps his most striking characteristic as a poet. And it was indeed a trophy of labour, of the application “of patient touches of unwearied art”. Whoever will turn, say to The Palace of Art, to Œnone, to the Dream of Fair Women, or even to The Sea-Fairies and to The Lady of Shalott, will see what labour was expended on their composition. Nothing indeed can be more interesting than to note the touches, the substitution of which measured the whole distance between mediocrity and excellence. Take, for example, the magical alteration in the couplet in the Dream of Fair Women:—

One drew a sharp knife thro’ my tender throat Slowly,—and nothing more,

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